Wood Shop Dale Broholm was touring the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg a few years ago when his friend, a former historian with the National Parks Service, described a landscape project that involved clearing trees.

Confections If soda were a person, it would need a publicist. Those sweet, sugary bubbles — once the image of wholesome Americana — have lately been blamed for rotting teeth, obesity, even teenage aggression.

True Crime There is a moment in Bruce DeSilva's new book, Cliff Walk , when the novel's hero — a wisecracking, coffee-swilling investigative reporter named Liam Mulligan — flops on his mattress to read a book by former Tampa Tribune reporter Ace Atkins. "Crime novels were his parachute out of the newspaper business," Mulligan says. "If only I had that kind of talent."

History Dept. Plaques and parades are nice, but the real story of the HMS Gaspee — the British customs schooner looted and burned off the coast of Rhode Island in the run-up to the Revolutionary War — is not rated "G."